Sunday, June 24, 2012

Constructor: Liz Gorski

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Element of Surprise" — A CARBON FOOTPRINT puzzle. The "Element of Surprise" is CARBON. What is "surprising" is that when you connect all the Cs in the grid, you get the rough outline of a human footprint. Rest of the theme clues are environmentalist terms or catchphrases

Yes. Now *that* is a Liz Gorski puzzle. Bold, ambitious, clever, multi-layered. So what if my "footprint" looks more like a drumstick or a lopsided ice cream cone. It's pretty dang close. Getting all the Cs to do that inside an already fairly thematically dense puzzle—one that is very conceptually tight, I might add—is really impressive. This reminds me a bit of her Guggenheim puzzle a few years back, and reminding me of that puzzle is never a bad thing. Fill is astonishingly solid given the thematic constraints. Yes, there's an O IS here and an I AS there and an LVOV over there (113D: Ukrainian city, formerly), but c'mon, besides "THANK U" (I'll see your RICEU and CORNELLU and raiseu) there's hardly anything in either the "Ugh" or the "What the!?" columns. Good clean fun.

Theme answers:

23A: Every chemical element has one (ATOMIC SYMBOL) — this was the one place I got slowed down, very early on, because I threw down ATOMIC NUMBER with such confidence; please note how SYMBOL and NUMBER share -MB- placements.

42D: Global warming calculation whose shape is suggested by connecting 14 squares in this puzzle in a closed loop based on the appropriate 23-Across (CARBON FOOTPRINT)

Couple of clever clues today in 11A: Pop's relative? (BANG!) and (esp.) 74A: Falls for married women? (NIAGARA). I wish I'd encountered the latter before I already had most of the letters—no Aha moment because by the time I saw the clue, I was really just checking to see if the answer was, in fact, NIAGARA, which is what the letter pattern I already had in the grid suggested. NIAGARA is the black sheep of Ken Burns' "National Parks" documentary, in that it is used as the reason National Parks are needed—no one wants Yosemite, or Yellowstone etc. to turn into "another NIAGARA" (i.e. an overdeveloped commercial hell hole).

Bullets:

18A: 18th-century Russian emperor (PETER II) — not a fan of the "you can guess the name but good look with the random Roman numeral" tsar/king/pope answers, but sometimes you need to stick some Is on to the ends of your LEOs and OLAFs and what not.

21A: Media executive Bob (IGER) — I'd've made this AGER or USER or UBER and/or shuffled some things around or done Anything not to have some random "media exec"'s name in my grid. Hell, I'd've changed him to the "Sopranos"' Robert ILER even, though I think avoiding the odd/crosswordy proper noun altogether, when possible, is usually the best bet.

27A: "Tough-actin'" medication (TINACTIN) — hard to forget this commercial phrase once you've heard it on TV a jillion times.

47A: Popular Caribbean destination, informally (ST. BART'S) — had no idea that was "informal."

51A: "___ 1138" (1971 sci-fi film) (THX) — "Thanks, 1138!"

5D: Dampier of the N.B.A. (ERICK) — I knew it was ERIC-, but was not sure about the last letter (H? K?). I'm guessing many of you were not sure about the whole dang thing. He's not the highest-profile name, but he *is* 36th on the N.B.A.'s all-time blocks list, so that's something.

26D: "Girl With a Hoop" and "The Umbrellas" (RENOIRS) — didn't recognize either of the titles. Still not hard.

38D: 45th American vice president (GORE) — Those guys are harder to keep track of, and (clearly) you can't rely on their number matching up with the pres's (e.g. Obama = 44, Biden = 47)

I think the cluing for the reveal in my puzzle was wrong. It should have referenced 14D (GREENHOUSEGASES) rather than 42D. The worst GREENHOUSEGAS is methane, and when I drew my pucture it looked more like a cow fart than a foot.

The theme answers, while legit, seem tedious---so media boiler-plated and even cliche that they lack texture and punch. Save water. Plant a tree. Ozone holes. Sure, conserve fuel---but this puzzle could use a shot of high-octane Amoco infused with STP....

So I look to the fill for inspiration. Other than Tinactin, I don't see much to water my eyes. Lots of 3-letter stuff which by definition has to be oft-used: Rah, sip, tra, PDA, ask, San, sot, YTD, sac, ado, age, Bic, owe, RKO, ear....

Try to find a pattern in Michael and his opinions of puzzles that require drawing something at the end. Because I can't.

Michael posted on Facebook that this might be one on which we Sunday-avoiders should make an exception. I generally admire Liz here, but I'm glad I saved my $6 or whatever exorbitant price the Sunday Times demands.

Every time I counted my C's I got a different result. I finally just trusted that there were 14 of them and if I bothered to connect them they would look something like a footprint. The joy was in the solving.

I kept going back and forth between IGER/AGE and ILER/ALE, and even considered ICER/ACE. At least I had seen the name ILER and Century was a plausible name for a micro-brewery ALE, so I went with that combo. Wrong.

@ED – I agree more with your assessment and less with @Rex’s. I didn’t find this much fun. Besides I hate going back to kindergarten after I’m done with a puzzle. You said: “Try to find a pattern in Michael and his opinions of puzzles that require drawing something at the end. Because I can't.” Allow me to try. @Rex is in awe of Liz Gorski, labeling her a genius and publishing her Abraham Lincoln/Gettysburg Address screed on pangrams. That’s one possibility. And, while I think @Rex is not a robot and human, I have discerned a pattern. The “drawing something at the end” is irrelevant to @Rex. He’s only interested in the construction, in the wordplay and has far less (if any) interest in the gimmicks. Hence if the puzzle holds up (in his opinion) despite the gimmicks (read pangrams as well) he likes it. If the puzzle does not hold up (IHO) he doesn’t like it, regardless of the gimmick/pangram. If the puzzle is adversely affected because of the [gimmick/pangram] he hates it.

Slogging through this much too easy puzzle, featuring familiar THROWAWAY environmentalist bumper sticker buzz words, added up to buzzkill for this solver who prefers to have those folks who are determined to save the planet through their advocacy do so on the op-ed pages of the Times, not in the crossword puzzle.

After the last letter went into the grid, the enthusiasm for pursuing the constructor’s connect-the-dots image hovered between slim and NOMINAL, especially after having to deal with the unpleasantness of forced fill, (LVOV and ELEMI, specifically), that gave the puzzle’s heel the wordies equivalent of a Verruca plantaris wart.

I too did not do the puzzle, so let me second ED's assessment. You know, BIC is a crappy answer, so it doesn't matter whether it was clued well or not. That's my opinion, let facts be damned.

Like JackJ, I was put off by the puzzle explicitely advocating for a CARBONTAX while decrying OFFSHOREDRILLING. These socialists have got their fingers into every thing.

Like JFC, I agree that Rex is an ass, even though when you pay attention to what he *actually* says it more often than not it makes sense. So, I choose not to pay attention to what he *actually* says and FoxNews it - you know, ignore the preamble and conclusion, just focus on one portion of the argument and interpret it as I wish.

Good fun Sunday puzzle to go with the morning coffee. Only a couple of small warts, but not much really to complain about. My only serious jam was in the SE corner with LVOV (WTF) and SIRENS for VIXENS. I also had IS IT OLD for 19D, but that eventually got fixed. Thanks Liz.

Maybe the people who don't like this puzzle are republicans and oil execs?

@Panama Red - If you check you will see several postings I made after @Rex called me an idiot which make it clear that he hates pangrams no matter what he says. I never take his personal, mean, vicious attacks personally. Just because he hates pangrams and is sometimes in denial doesn't mean he is always in denial.

@Rush (Limbaugh?) - I have never said @Rex is an ass and I cannot even imagine how you drew that conclusion from what I have said here. I have always said he is complicated. He did strike me as a bit imperious on that Tony Guida interview, however. It was the only time I ever recall feeling sorry for Tony....

I smiled when I saw LIZ GORSKI's name on the puzzle but it started to slip as I found this less than thrillings .Where was Ms. Gorski's smooth elegance? than I got to 42 down!.I found the Puzzle awkward bland, heavy handed and heart-breakingly disappointing.I did not draw anything on my commuter screen so I can't comment on the footprint.

Finishing the puzzle, I wondered if the overall reaction would be more THANKU or SCREEDS. I guess I like crosswords to offer me an escape from fraught issues, so my first reaction was an "Oh, no" at being made to confront global warming first thing on Sunday morning. Still, despite the downer of the theme, I appreciated the genius of pairing CARBON FOOTPRINT with GREENHOUSE GASES.

Seeing that it was an Elizabeth Gorsky puzzle, I solved it on paper instead of online because I was pretty sure there was going to be a drawing involved. But it took me an AGE to figure out which 14 squares to connect in order to get a footprint shape - I started with the atomic symbols F, O, etc., but then finally got it that you need C to make the footprint.

Besides SCREEDS, I liked GALLEON and the way NIAGARA "fell" under SAVE WATER.

I found the puzzle very easy (except for the SE corner). I had the same problem as @ Bird: didn't know LVOV and had sIrENS for VIXENS. Took me only 19 minutes to complete. but spent over 5 in the SE.

I do the puzzle on my laptop using AcrossLite and because the clue for 42D was so small and hard to make out I stopped reading after "connecting 14 squares" told me I'd find a footprint. When I looked at the completed puzzle, I couldn't figure out which letters should be connected and decided to check here in the morning. I read @Rex's post and couldn't figure out how he knew to connect the C's. I finally figured it out by going back and reading the entire clue for 42D.

Based on the comments concering the shape of the foot, I'm glad I didn't waste more time than I already had on this.

Fourteen C's in the puzzle. Carbon 14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, is used for dating objects (no, not your 1964 Porsche 356C).

This was a delightful, if pretty easy, Sunday puzzle. Clever theme with a fun payoff: the C-connected footprint (albeit with somewhat splayed toes).

Sometimes these virtuoso puzzles are not so enjoyable for the solvers; their primary purpose seems to be to show off the constructor's ingenuity. This one, however, evokes both "How'd she do it?" and "That was fun" responses.

I don’t know Alanis Morissette songs so I figured I had to get the across. For “Cost” I assumed present tense and entered RUNTO. For “Pose” I entered ACT which seemed reasonable. Even though I had THANTU, song titles could be anything and everything else looked OK. That’s when I noticed I had SPLUCH for “Eclat”. WTF? Now I don’t care for the choice of French as the second language of NYT crossword puzzles and I figured the answer for éclat could be French but spluch seemed wrong. Thanks Rex for clearing up that section.

I am a Democrat and a tree hugger. And still I disliked this puzzle. However, seeing Ms. Gorski's name at the top of the puzzle is a downer for me. I only have a 58%...make that now 57% of a 100% solving rate for her puzzles, no matter the day.

CELERIES? No. Stalks OF celery, a bunch of celery.

Nice lot of theme answers and I don't print out and draw on puzzles. Put me in the "dislike" box.

I was disappointed with this one too. There seemed to be alot of autofill where i was just filling in the blanks - so it may have had something to do with the way i moved through the puzzle. Regardless, I thought the "catchphrases" were super bland. I did like the CARBONFOOTPRINT gimmick quite a bit, but it just wasn't a big enough payoff.

Relatively smooth solve, didn't feel like making the drawing, and wouldn't have figured out to connect the Cs. But there were some clever clues, and I will never miss one of Liz's puzzles; they just feel good to do.

Fave fillins... YELLFIRE. Not sure this is anything, but sure sounds like something. TINACTIN. Har. ISITART? Not sure, but about the best foot you can get out of 14 Cs. Let's give the PediPic a strong C+. To hell with the toes, the puz is tryin' to save the Planet. Maybe the Tanactin arrived too late to save the toes. Let's not go the same route on the planet.

Typical great Gorski. Brilliant grid. All the esoterica was crossed well. I just didn't enjoy the fact that the theme felt like a PSA.

The statement “Rex hates crosswords” is untrue (according to him), moot, and superfluous. To think that the man dislikes a puzzle because it contains every letter of the alphabet is . . . it just doesn’t make sense.

Imho, Rex’s general point is that a puzzle that achieves a pangram at the expense of good fill is putting the cart before the horse, is putting style over substance, is amateurish. Pangrams, as I’m sure has been opined, are sought after and discussed by cruciverbabloggers and young constructors--that’s about it; the average solver doesn’t care about pangrams, other than as a novel aspect of a puzzle. Over perhaps the last decade, pangrams have become a hot topic on sites like this and in other corners of the crossworld world; fresh constructors, hearing the talk, end up holding pangrams in a much higher esteem than do editors and solvers. Editors care about good fill, not pangrams. Solvers care about good fill, not pangrams. The other day Rex had a very insightful post on this topic in which he made an example of a puzzle that was very obviously trying to achieve a pangram, and it did so at the expense of good fill. That post could be a very valuable lesson for constructors. I haven’t heard Rex say, “I hate pangrams”; I’ve heard Rex say he dislikes puzzles that sacrifice a well-filled grid for the sole purpose of being able to say that that grid contains all the letters of the alphabet--which may be important or gratifying to the constructor and a handful of bloggers who comment on the puzzle the next day, but means much less to the solver (the most important person in the whole equation) and to the editor, to whom solvability, tightness, theme quality, etc., are what really matter. In light of all this, much of which is self-evident, in addition to Rex’s explaining his opinion and sentiment pretty clearly, the childish refrain of “Rex hates pangrams” has become so nebulously superficial as to be irritating.

Liked the whole thing. So, Anonymous, you admit the Republicans don't care dick about the environment. They talk about not leaving future generations a big deficit, but a deficit of clean air, water, biodiversity? Not so much.

I agree with hazel that the catchphrases were bland, boring, and no fun. Disliked the TINACTIN clue since it contained almost the entire answer, and disliked the clue for KOREAN (unless "KOREAN" actually means "soul" in Korean??).

@Rush - Five shiny gold stars for best comment today, though JFC's response (to both you and Panama Red) proves once again and for good that he may know how to punctuate a sentence, but it will usually still be full of illogical, faulty reasoning. To wit:

"...(Y)ou will see several postings I made after @Rex called me an idiot which make it clear that he hates pangrams no matter what he says."

Oh, really? I saw three posts from JFC yesterday. In the first, he stubbornly insists that Rex always hates a pangram. In the second, he attempts to wiggle past SethG's concise, accurate statement of what Rex has always said about pangrams by calling Rex's reasoning (i.e., he doesn't like pangrams that require crappy fill to execute) "complicated nuances." If Rex posted "I don't like to have sex in public," JFC would no doubt lop off the qualifier and go through life trying to convince everyone here that Rex doesn't like to have sex.

Need more evidence of JFC's illogic? He offers it up on a shiny platter in his response to you (and, again, Panama Red):

First, by trying to say that since he, JFC, posted twice yesterday that Rex hates all pangrams, then it must ipso facto be true.

Then he compounds his portrait of idiocy by describing Rex's commentary as a "personal, mean, vicious attack" and in the very next paragraph says he "never said Rex is an ass." Ooookay. "People who make personal, mean, vicious attacks" may not be a dictionary definition of "ass," but I think it equates pretty well.

But I hate to pile on an easy mark like JFC exclusively, so I'll risk banishment and add that ACME deserved a stronger response than she got from SethG yesterday because she also completely ignored WHAT REX REALLY SAYS ABOUT PANGRAMS, though in her usual Pollyanna fashion she tried to take the sting out of her words with an unrelated aside. The aside actually annoyed me more than the obtuseness of her scold, because it seemed to have been added purely to take the sting out of said scold. Jesus H. Christ, Rex is a grown-up who calls a spade a spade and I happen to love that about him. Conversely, I almost always dislike people who try too hard to say something nice about bloody everything.

Oh, yeah - the puzzle! Flew threw it in way under record time, but DNF because of SIRENS/SUFFIR in the SE. Ugh.

Eddie: This is... This is a, sort of... corpse... in an open, oaken, oblong coffin... Silky lining. It's a dead body, Pats. Patsy: Yeah, but is it art, Eddie? Eddie: No, sweetie, it's my father. Patsy: Are you sure? Eddie: Yeah, I think so. But I've just never seen him in a suit before.

Everybody just bought Rex's claim of a human footprint. But clearly this clue refers to the famous, or infamous, "hockey stick" graph that demonstrates the meteoric rise of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last century, and convinces 98% of climate scientists that our goose is rapidly cooking. Al Gore featured the graph and the term in his movie.

I'm kind of astonished we have progressed this far in the day without anyone noting this.

I love doing Liz Gorski puzzles, and I literally squealed with delight when this one downloaded last night. Startled my dozing husband.

I had Lodz for LVOV and was quite pleased with myself for a while. Hand up for tANG/tIC. I went over this puzzle many times to find out how I could have "incorrect cells," and finally had to come here to find out that little personal Natick.

I enjoyed the theme, and the multiple layers of the puzzle. And as someone who has had the privilege of speaking and working with some of the world's premiere climate scientists, it was nice to see an important topic make it into the puzzle. If merely mentioning a topic is beating someone over the head with it, then we really will never solve the pressing problems of our day.

I say we continue the answers with random U endings. At least M&A will be happy.

I was too clever by half for this one. Here was my line of reasoning. 23A was, of course, ATOMIC NUMBER (the trap Rex also fell into). 19D, though, had to be IS IT ART. So that meant that the S and the N had to occupy the same square. Aha! A rebus! Sn is the atomic symbol for Tin. So, from very early on in the puzzle, I was looking for squares whose mismatching intersection formed the symbol of an element. Then, I would have to consult the periodic table and connect these squares in the order of their atomic number to form the shape of a footprint. ATOMIC NUMBER and the associated downs, though, forced weird combos that I was not at all sure were elements -- Iu? Oe? Lr? Must be some of those weird ones at the bottom of the periodic table. And those must be the four toes of the left foot, all bunched up together in the NW? I only cottoned to the fact that I was wrong very late in the puzzle, when I realized I had filled in almost the whole thing without coming across any more rebus squares... and that spelling iNEZ as YNES allowed SYMBOL without any mismatches. I was still stuck on the connect-in-order-of-atomic-number thing though -- which meant I'd have to locate 14 squares, all with one-letter atomic symbols, that connected to form the promised shape. Huh? It didn't occur to me that we were talking about a CARBON footprint -- all C's! Doh!!

This was a solid puzzle, and I really thought the answers were all locked in. I was almost correct, but for one little square. So, completed the puzzle in 2:15, but there was an error(s). Spent 1:45 searching for the mistake(s). Finally, I zeroed in on the THz zENA cross. I guess I am not all that familiar with mythological warrior princesses and remote imaginary spacecraft. So, a 4 hour extravaganza for me. And, it was all fun.

Surprised to see Rex cutting so much slack here. For other constructors, seems he would have shredded the less than stellar fill that he, and others here, hyave pointed out.It may be that Liz has earned her stripes, and that perhaps should be part of the reward for being such a prolific and (usually) fabulous constructor.I don't look at the name till I'm done, and I was not overwhelmed by this puzzle. It was clean, but didn't sizzle.

TINACTIN clued with Tough ACTIN'? Is that kosher? I didn't put it in till the very end.

And hand up for surprise at ECO & ECONO CARs.

Maybe I'm just ornery because Friday was a big DBF, and I am still struggling with a 1/4 empty Saturday.

But then again, Saturday was one of the finest sailing days on Lake Candlewood in my memory, so that more than may explain why I'm not done yet!

Oh - and nice touch having GORE in the grid...! (Thanks r.alph for pointing that out.)

I was confused by 42D clue as it didn't indicate that all the "footprint" letters would be the letter "C". I thought it was one of each element that is represented by a single letter. Coincidently there are 14, B C F H I K N O P S U V Y Z, so i thought somehow the footprint would be formed by a combination of those. Hmmmmph!

Well, LVOV is just plain ridiculous. No hope of getting that. _I_ENS had to be sIrENS for me; VIXENS never occurred. True, that left me a total natick at 100: _TK/_UFFIR, but I just left it blank. Why, oh why would you clue to fit two so similar words? LVOV indeed. Preposterous!

And CELERIES? What next--golds and silvers? Yecch. Even OFL, as in love with Ms. Gorski as he is, had to mention OIS and IAS. Double-yecch.

Is this puzzle clever? You bet. But ISITART? Outside of getting a plug in for GORE (one of the ALS) in a conservationist theme, nope.

As I was making soup, using ingredients on a list I had prepared with my BIC, I used a celery I had bought, and then ED came in with another celery. So I used both celeries, and I had no problem with that. Then I went to do the Sunday puzzle, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I noted no "message" or hidden agenda--simply a well-executed theme with several oft-heard environmental phrases. What? They don't "sparkle"? Why would they?They are relevant topics, expertly included in a gem of a puzzle.

It certainly brought out political biases in the comments, though. Sometimes I think many in this blogfest miss the point entirely.

Count me in the TANG crowd, never thought of the other kind of "pop" and couldn't figure out a sensible answer for 11D. ALso had to hope that that odd sounding medication was right as I've never heard of it. Other than that a fairly uneventful solve. No problem with the foot, or whatever, as I'm not into chasing out "designs". To each his own. Sorry to see all the squabbling going on. It makes me scroll past many of the comments, and I'm left wondering if I missed something worthwhile. One of the things I like about this site is, no matter the subject, there is someone out there who can explain the signifance (source) of something I don't understand.Looking for a happier Monday!

I find it interesting that this became somewhat of a political discussion. The dems have it wrong regarding conservatives. The latter are all for conservation but they find it hard to swallow that humans caused global warming and that humans can stop the warming. I found the SE of the puzzle the longest to complete. It took me a while to figure out 100D and 122A. It might be because I read Tokenish as Tolkenish. Don't ask.

Also RuNTO and Act at 68 and 73a, and I never did get THROWAWAY, which is a great answer, because I had lTD for the financial page abbreviation at 91a and the sci-fi film at 51a could have been any random letter as far as I knew (TaX seemed pretty scary). And I stuck with ATOMICnuMBer for way too long.

I think DigitalDan's interpretation of the reveal makes more sense than Rex's, but then I didn't try to draw any shape.

I renew my objection to commenters who post their assessment of the puzzle without having solved it.

It is interesting to read through the comments and see references to 'yesterday'. We syndylanders will not encounter that 'yesterday' for four more weeks! It is also interesting to read the various reactions to the concept of human impact on Global Warming. The sand is full of many heads.

I enjoyed the puzzle. It was full of many 'AHA' moments. Like most everyone else I insisted on ATOMICnuMBer for far too long, even though the crosses proved it wrong. The MB was bait and I bit.

The theme answers, while easy, were sparkly and relevant. I'm impressed at the 'C' placements. THANKU LG!

@Ginger - it was the "Time Warped Insights" aspect of being a syndilander that inspired me to suggest a while back that we rename our little SPHERE "the TWIlight Zone - alas the idea never caught on. "The sand is full of many heads" is a wonderful comment on so many issues, I hope you won't mind if I use it sometime.

@Diri - don't mind at all. Unfortunately, many folks form their opinions based on what they wish to be true, and not on what has been proven factual. I don't even want to think about what chaos this insistance will eventually cause.

I have to use my third, and theoretically last, comment to wish all of the Canadian syndilanders a (almost belated) happy Canada Day (French: Fête du Canada, per Wiki). Waxy, Red, Survivor, et al., I hope you had a wonderful day!

I will join the one person above who didn't like the clue "...actin" referring to the answer "..actin". I knew of the product Tinactin, but surely it's against some rule-of-crosswords that the clue and answer can't contain the exact same word.

Linkers of this puzzle are clearly blinded by the Gorski name, because it truly awful.

Setting aside the "footprint" looking way more like a map of Africa than a footprint, there were some real tortured spots and clues. Seoul soul = Korean? No. Korean soul = Seoul, sure, but not the other way around. Triune? Yeccch. The Iger/Age cross is about the worst I've ever seen. And don't even get me started on the Tra/Scrag/Laval spot.

While I'm at it, BANG is not a relative of POP. SNAP and CRACKLE are, but not BANG. Terrible clue as a result.

That said, THANKU was one of my favorite clues, so I guess I'm just having an ornery day. I mean, that's the actual title of the song, U and all. It's not like it wasn't a huge ubiquitous hit, because it was. Are you trying to tell me that song title is off limits to crosswords because the artist chose an unusual spelling for the title?